(iv)

ier has been selected (historical, moral and miscellaneous) as has been thought most likely to please and engage as well as improve the young mind. The whole has been thrown into paragraphs of a conveniert lengih for reading-lessons; and interspersed with many remarks.

As the book is designed for the use of Cliristians of all denomi. nations indifferently, no remark has been made on any points which are disputed between Christians; and the remarks in general have a threefold object : 1stly, 10 inculcate the several divine virtues, aid religion in general, from scripture history and example--2dly, to bring into view, in the most compendious manner, some of the evidences of the truth of Christianity; and 3dly, to illustrate the unequalled beauties of the sacred writings.

Among the advantages proposed by this selection are the follow. ing: The knowledge of the doctrines and moral dụties of our holy religion will be hereby instilled into young minds, without any corrupting mixture. They will learn the nature of the Christian religion, not from second hand descriptions, or as it is drawn by a hu. man pencil, but from a real view of the thing itself. And they will in this way be led to read the bible with a relish, as a pleasant employinent; which relish may be likely to grow with their growth and etrengthen with their strength: whereas it has been objected, that when youth are made to read those parts which they do not understand, they consider it as an irksome task, that sometimes oc. casions a disgust against the whole book.

It is furiher hoped, that some who are not incompetent judges may think this to be an advantageous method of defending car hcly religion, and guarding inexperienced minds against the attacks of infidelity. If one should deny that this world were made by a -wise and good Eeing, because of the defects which appear upon it, and the confusion that seems to reign in it, there might be an impossibility of answering all his quibbling arguments. The shortest and surest way would be to point out a number of the most strik. ing beauties; the marks of wisdom and design, and the displays of goodness which appear on the face of the earth; cbserving withal, that seeming deformities may be so beauties in disguise."

Or, if a man who had been long sinut up in a dark room should deny that the sun is the fountain of light, and pretend that it had no. better title to that distinction than his own glimmering lamp: you would not undertake to confuie alí his quibbles, but rather bring him out to the open day, and show him the sun in its meridian glosy, and let him then compare his lamp with it. In like manner the most striking beauties of the bible, drawn together and presented in a single point of view, may go further to convince some people of the divine excellency of that book, than a whole volume of accurate ard learned reasoning in its favour.

Perhaps too much attention has been occupied in answering the minute and trivial objections of infidel writers : at least in a great measure, it seems to have been a fruitless task ; because without taking any notice at all of the answers, they have, from time to time, renewed their objections with as much confidence as if no answers had been given. This conduct has equally manifested their cunning and their dishonesty; for they well knew that many would read their objections, who would never have opportunity or inclination to read the ingenuous and solid answers which had already been made to those objections:

It is an old maxim, that the bible is the best expounder of itself; and perhaps it is equally true, that the bible is the

ON THE STYLE OR LANGUAGE OF OUR ENGLISH

TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.

ALL who have any considerable knowledge of the English lan. gauge well know that it has in some degree been corrupted, by in. termixing with it words and phrases of a foreign kind.

This cor. ruption of our language seems to have taken its first rise from the circumstar.ce of placing on the British throne a foreign prince, name. ly, William of Nassau : in consequence of this event, the British court being crowded with foreigners, an affectation of using foreigy words and phrases began to prevail.

The evil was greatly increased by the war of the confederates with Lewis the 14th of France, which began in the reign of William, and continued throngh most of the reign of Queen Ann, his successor. By that war a number of the British nobility and commoners, as well as peasantry, were drawn over as soldiers, and were employed for several years on the continent of Europe; where, being mixed together with the people of several other nations, they were accustonied, at length, to express themselves in a mixed so of language, consisting par:ly of words and phrases of a foreign stainp.

The ingenious Addison noticed and reprobated this inundation of foreign works in the following manner :-. The present war has so aduiterated cur language with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our great grandfathers to know what his pos. terity had been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern news-pejer.'' (Sce No. 455 of the Speciator, where this affecta. tion of using foreign worls instead.1 English is delicately satirized )

Other causes have ce opera ed, not arily to corrupt our language with simr.ge words, but also to darken it by such artificial arrangement of words as obscured ihe sense in the xaine degree that it improved ine sound. Particularly, some authors of grea: fame have written in a very pompous, affecied style ; among the inost eminent of whom was Dr. Samuel Jchunson, who, composing some of his celebrated boobs while his attention was partiy occupied in compiling his dictionary, and by that means, having his lead filled with teclinical teriris, lie distributed them with an unsparing hand ; and disfigured his language by an unnatural stiffnes and pomposity.

Many other writers of inferior abilities, affecting to form themselves by lat celebrated model, have imitated with too much suc. cess, not the beautiful and noble thoughts, but the swollen stile of Dr. Johnson.

After Richardson and Fielding had obtained a fame as novelists, a ruinerous tribe of writers engaged in the same line. The shelves of book-sellers have been crowded with novels, which besides their

a

immoral tendency, and the entire barrenness of many of them as to common sense, have frequently been written in an unnatural swollen language. And as novels in latter years, have, unhappily, been a principle part of reading among the American youth, they have caught from them an unnatural. taste with respect to language, as well as many impure and extravagant ideas.

From the aforementioned causes as well as others it has happen. ed that many words not English have unnecessarily been mixed with our language ; which in the mean time, has been obscured by such unnatural arrangements of words as hid the meaning, while they attempted to please the ear; and if we had not a standard-of pure English, it might at length become impossible to separate the false from the true coin.

It is readily granted that in the progress of arts, some new words became necessary to express new ideas; and when new words have been either coined or borrowed from other languages, merely to sup. ply the deficiency of our language, it was both necessary and alvantageous: but the coining of new words, or introducing foreign words to express things which already had English names appre. priated to them, occasionsa redundancy, and breeds confusion in our language.

Now it has favorably happened that the Bible-translation, which is at present in use, was inade before those innovations in our lan.' guage bogan. Fifty-four men, distinguished for their knowledge, not only of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as English, but also of the principal inodern languages of Europe, were selected and appointed by king James 1st of England, A. D. 1604, to make a new English translation of the Bible.

Forty-seven of them began this task in the year 1607; and forming themselves into six divisions, they carefully compared the former English translations of ihe Bible, not only with the original, but also with translations into Spanish, and some other European languages. At length after abundance of care and labor, the Eng. lish translation which is now in use, was published in the year 1613.

It is worthy of remark, that the Grecian and Roman Classics, which are justly considered the standard of purity and elegance in style, were studied much more thoroughly at that period than at any time since.

And to this circumstance, in a great degree, it is probably owing that our English translation of the Bible is simple in its language and entirely free from affectation. The words made use of are pure English, and there is not a phrase from the beginning to the end that swells into bombast.

It is acknowledged that in our bible translation some words have become obsolete, and some thoughts might be better expressed in different phrases, in order to suit them to the delicacy of a mod. ern ear, but with these small variations, and also rectitying a few, Inaccuracies in point of grammar, it may be pronounced a com. plete standard of pure English.

We read or hear, not for the sound of words, or for the sake of observing a stately structure of language, but to obtain informa. tion : so that, in general, that is the best style, by which thoughts are communicated with the greatest plainness and in the fewest words. And the scripture language, in our English translation, is; in a remarkable degree, both concise and cleat. * It may justly be called the perfection of style, to speak or write in such a manner that the hearer, or reader, without noticing the lans guage, is led to yield up his whole attention to the thoughts which it communicaies. And this is the case, when we read the Bible in its English dress : while the thoughts strike our minds, we scarcely think of the language in which those thoughts are conveyed to us : whereas an affected style ever turns the attention on itself rather than on the sentiment. Every attempt to embellish the sublime thoughts of scripture, by divesting them of their simple dress, and adding the decorations of florid language, has debased the sacred writings, and manifested the folly of the attempter. As well might ene attenipt to varnish the colours of the rainbow.

The language of our Bible translation may, in particular, be con. sidered as a very excellent model for youth. An affectation in language is no less disgusting than an affectation in dress and inannersi

for language is the dress of thought."-Now it is observable that youth who have an ambition to excel, are very apt, through a desire to distinguish thenrselves, to run into an affectation in language; or to endeavor to make their style glitter with ornaments. It is therefore

proper

that their style should at first be formed upon a most simple plan

I will subjoin some remarks of Mr. Addison, whose authority, in point of language, is indisputable. Spectator No. 405.

There is a certain coldness and indifference in the phrases of our European languages, when they are compared with the oriental forms of speech ; and it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew idia oms run into the English tongue with a particular grace and beauty, Our language has received innumerable elegancies and improve. ments, from the infusion of Hebraisms which are derived to it out of the poetical passages in Holy Writ. They give a force and energy to our expression; warm and animaie our language, and convey our thoughts in more ardent and intense phrases than any that are to be met with in our own tongue.

“ There is something so pathetic in this kind of dichon, that it often sets the mind in a flame, and makes our hearts burn within us. How cold and dead does a prayer appear, that is composed in the most elegant and polite forms of speech, which are natural to our tongue, when it is not heightened by that solemnity of phrases which may be drawn from the sacred writings.”